S&P ranks Tunisia in the Banking Industry CountryRisk Assessment (BICRA) group “8” in both of its two mainareas of analysis—economic risk and industry risk.

The economic risk score of “8” reflects that Tunisiafaces “very high risk” in “economic resilience,” “intermediaterisk” in “economic imbalances,” and “extremely high risk” in ”credit risk in the economy.”

The industry risk score for Tunisia is “8”.

This reflectsthat the country faces “very high risk” in its “institutionalframework” and “systemwide funding” and “high risk” in its “competitive dynamics.”

S&P classifies the Tunisian government as “supportive” ofits domestic banks, as demonstrated through its good trackrecord of supporting systemically important banks when needed.

However, the rating agency notes that the government haslimited financial flexibility and capacity to provideextraordinary support to banks in the event of a systemiccrisis.

With BICRA score 8, Tunisia is ranked along withcountries as Lebanon, Egypt, Georgia, Nigeria and Kazakhstan.